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In hermetically sealed buildings, less fresh air gets in. [...] Eventually, this polluted indoor air – which is making more than a third of the planet sick – is expelled into the surrounding environment. This raises the question of how buildings pollute the air around them, what pollutants they produce, and whether this expelled air is sufficiently diluted once outdoors. — The Conversation
As the article mentions, the World Health Organization had previously pointed to a "lack of monitoring of air pollution levels, sources and consequences on public health" as a present danger for cities. To fix it, authors César Martín-Gómez and Arturo H. Ariño of the Universidad de Navarra... View full entry
The New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice has released the city’s first report into environmental justice issues. Titled 'EJNYC: A Study of Environmental Justice Issues in New York City,' the study analyzes environmental hazards ranging from toxin exposure and... View full entry
London-based ecoLogicStudio has unveiled a collection of biophilic design products as part of their wider PhotoSynethetica research project. The collection includes a desktop biotechnological air purifier, a compostable stool, and a 3D printed jewel made of re-metabolized pollution. Image... View full entry
The U.S. Pavilion at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, which opens in May, will feature an examination of worldwide plastic dependency through the work of five artists and designers who will deliver site-specific commissions as part of the overall exhibition curated by Lesley... View full entry
The New York State Assembly and Senate have passed a bill barring the construction of schools within 500 feet of a highway. The Schools Impact by Gross Highways Act (or SIGH Act) was written to protect school-age children from air pollution. Under the bill, which will also apply to New York City... View full entry
The second most valuable company in the world, Amazon has been gobbling up space throughout the southeast corner of the city, taking advantage of zoning meant to preserve blue-collar jobs in a market in which housing and office space have typically generated higher revenues. — The San Francisco Chronicle
Amazon bought a 510,000-square-foot former sanitation motor pool parcel in the Showplace Square section of the city for $200 million in December of 2020. It has since proposed an expansion of the site’s footprint into an over 725,000-square-foot distribution hub for 400 workers that neighboring... View full entry
In California’s Inland Empire, dozens of mega-warehouses for Amazon, UPS and other companies are choking the cities with traffic and air pollution. Some argue that the jobs warehouses provide aren’t worth the cost, while others say it’s online shopping that’s the real problem. — Los Angeles Times
Despite the boiler-plate promise of adding jobs to the community, warehouse-laden tracts have been dumping an increasing amount of pollutants into the atmosphere in the form of increased truck and air cargo traffic and propelled in part by a sharp rise in online shopping. Amazon opened its... View full entry
The Trump administration has built up the biggest backlog of unfunded toxic Superfund clean-up projects in at least 15 years, nearly triple the number that were stalled for lack of money in the Obama era, according to 2019 figures quietly released by the Environmental Protection Agency over the winter holidays.
The accumulation of Superfund projects that are ready to go except for money comes as the Trump administration routinely proposes funding cuts for Superfund and for the EPA in general.
— Associated Press
Under the current presidential administration, funding earmarked for cleaning up superfund sites has slowed to a trickle. According to an Associated Press report, the number of unfunded projects has ballooned from 12 in 2016, President Barack Obama's last year in office, to 34 this year. ... View full entry
The samples he collects will help scientists better understand how the massive increase in seasonal wildfires burning through residential areas might be affecting our health. Where smoke once contained the remnants of only biomass (trees and other organic matter), fires are now burning up homes—structures that contain thousands of synthetic chemicals, paints, plastics, and metals that smolder and combust into tiny particles. — National Geographic
Air pollution worsened in the United States in 2017 and 2018, new data shows, a reversal after years of sustained improvement with significant implications for public health.
In 2018 alone, eroding air quality was linked to nearly 10,000 additional deaths in the U.S. relative to the 2016 benchmark, the year in which small-particle pollution reached a two-decade low, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.
— The Washington Post
The Washington Post reports that "concentrations of the pollutant have risen about 5.5 percent since 2016," and points out several contributing factors that the Carnegie Mellon study identified: increased natural gas use and vehicle traffic, risen severity and frequency of wildfires, and the... View full entry
In the height of daytime, the sky suddenly blackened, and day became night in Sao Paulo.
Sure, smog is bad in the Western Hemisphere’s largest city, where traffic jams can stretch for dozens of miles. But not this bad. What was going on? Was the end near?
— The Washington Post
A combination of meteorological events paired with smoke that had traveled hundreds of miles from intense forest fires in remote parts of the Amazon caused a period of sudden midday darkness in the most populous city in the Western Hemisphere on Monday, reports The Washington Post. Meanwhile on... View full entry
Cement is everywhere, but few notice the impact it has on the environment. A standard building material used everywhere, it is often confused with concrete. Cement is a key component in making concrete. By burning limestone at extremely high temperatures, this process turns the stone into a... View full entry
A colourful mural of a 35m-tall tree in Mexico City is one of three environmentally friendly new public works made using Airlite paint, which purifies polluted air in a process similar to photosynthesis.
[...] the mural aims to increase oxygen levels in one of the western hemisphere’s most polluted cities, where ozone concentration levels remain high despite government regulations on fuel and cars.
— The Art Newspaper
Image courtesy of Boa Mistura."Airlite paint chemically reacts with pollutants in the air, turning them into inert compounds," reports The Art Newspaper. "The roughly 1,000 sq. m mural should neutralise the same amount of pollution created by around 60,000 vehicles a year."The artists responsible... View full entry
For 20 years, the American Lung Association has gathered and analyzed data from official air quality monitors creating its annual "State of the Air" report. It's been reported by the association that more than four in ten people currently live in areas where pollution levels are too dangerous to... View full entry
House Observations of Microbial and Environmental Chemistry—was the world’s first large-scale collaborative investigation into the chemistry of indoor air. [...] The experiment’s early results are just now emerging, and they seem to show that the combined emissions of humans and their daily activities—cooking, cleaning, metabolizing—are more interesting, and potentially more lethal, than anyone had imagined. — The New Yorker
In this New Yorker piece, writer Nicola Twilley observes one of the experiments of HOMEChem, who investigates the atmospheric chemistry of our indoor environments and how everyday activities can greatly affect its air quality. “Dozens of the chemicals measured by the HOMEchem team are known to... View full entry
